[Photo News] Samsung TV-BTS pop up store opens in Garosugil

Samsung Electronics has collaborated with K-pop stars BTS on the opening of a pop-up store for fans at Garosugil in southern Seoul, the company said Friday. The Serif, Samsung’s flagship lifestyle TV model, is installed at the three-floor store, “BTS Pop-Up: Map of Soul,” to display music videos of the idol group. Four Serif TVs could be spotted on each floor. On the second floor of the store, Samsung has installed a 1,200-nit HDR LED display to better support the offl

Oct. 23, 2020

Samsung SDS wins AI engine competitions

Samsung SDS announced Thursday that the company had won both foreign and local competitions designed to test natural language processing capabilities. Samsung SDS’ artificial intelligence model won a competition associated with HotpotQA -- a dataset developed by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University, the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, and Google AI. In Korea, the company has won competitions related to the Korean Question Answering Dataset, in whi

Oct. 22, 2020

LG joins tailorable home appliance market with Objet Collection

LG Electronics on Thursday announced a new lineup of tailorable home appliances under the brand Objet, joining the growing market for customizable consumer electronics. The company unveiled 11 new products, including a convertible refrigerator, dishwasher, lightwave oven, water purifier, washing machine and clothes care machine. Those products under LG Objet Collection offer a number of customizable options, letting consumers choose colors, materials and arrangements of functions to make

Oct. 22, 2020

LG CNS to allow more students to take AI education program

LG CNS said Thursday that the company would provide artificial intelligence education to around 4,000 students here. The company said it has increased the number of students who can take its education program this year by 60 percent compared to last year. In 2019, the company had some 2,500 students complete its program. Starting this year, LG CNS has been holding classes online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Around 1,000 students have finished the program, and the company will invite 3,000 m

Oct. 22, 2020

Apple's iPhone 12 to propel S. Korea's 5G user growth

Apple Inc.'s new iPhone 12 is expected to boost South Korea's number of 5G users to over 10 million by the end of this year, local analysts said Thursday, as the country looks to lead the global race to deploy the latest-generation network. The first 5G phone from Apple, set to be available for preorder Friday here, comes as a boon for telecom operators that have faced disappointing 5G user growth since the country first launched the network in April last year. South Korea's three major teleco

Oct. 22, 2020

Vietnam again asks Samsung to invest in semiconductor infrastructure

Vietnam’s leader has asked Lee Jae-yong, the de facto leader of South Korea’s top conglomerate Samsung Electronics, to make an investment in building a semiconductor plant in the country, according to news reports by Vietnamese media on Wednesday. During a meeting held in Hanoi on Tuesday, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc expressed his hope that Samsung makes an investment in Vietnam by building a chip manufacturing plant there. While visiting Seoul in November 2019

Oct. 21, 2020

Tree guard tech: KT, Posco team up to keep streets green

South Korean telecommunications firm KT announced Wednesday that the company has teamed up with Posco and Mystech to develop smart urban street furniture. Under the partnership signed Wednesday, the three Korean firms plan to introduce its smart street furniture system to smart cities that the local governments will introduce down the road. In the development phase, KT will provide its Internet of Things technologies. Posco will offer its steel materials, while local street furniture maker M

Oct. 21, 2020

Naver's online forums largest source of COVID-19 fake news: lawmaker

Online forums operated by Naver Corp., South Korea's largest portal operator, had the most cases of COVID-19-related fake news censored among popular websites here, a lawmaker said Wednesday. The country took action in 47 cases on Naver's online forums out of a total of 196 cases of pandemic-related fake news it censored this year, according to Rep. Jo Seoung-lae of the ruling Democratic Party, citing data from the country's censorship body, the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC).

Oct. 21, 2020

Mobile carriers sharpen AI services for corporate clients amid pandemic

As the business appetite for cloud and remote work services grows amid the pandemic, South Korean telecom operators are expanding artificial intelligence (AI) services to help companies cope with the shift to new technologies. While the country's three major carriers -- SK Telecom Co., KT Corp. and LG Uplus Corp. -- have traditionally focused on AI services for subscribers, such as virtual assistants, they have recently targeted corporate clients to help them deal with growing network issues su

Oct. 21, 2020

Intel deal to make SK hynix world's No. 2 NAND provider

SK hynix announced Tuesday that it would acquire Intel’s NAND business for $9 billion, in a deal that will make it the world’s second-largest NAND flash memory provider. SK hynix said it has signed an agreement with Intel under which the Korean chipmaker will acquire the US tech giant’s NAND memory and storage business. The $9 billion deal includes transaction of the NAND solid-state drive business, the NAND component and wafer business and the Dalian NAND memory manufactur

Oct. 20, 2020

Line Corp. launches banking service in Thailand

Line Corp. announced Tuesday that the company has launched messenger-based banking platform Line BK in Thailand, together with one of the largest banks in the nation. The platform will be operated by joint venture Kasikorn Line, forged by Line Corporation’s subsidiary Line Financial Asia and Thai bank Kasikornbank’s subsidiary Kasikorn Vision Company Limited. Line BK is Line Corporation’s first-ever banking service that allows messenger users to easily transfer money, manag

Oct. 20, 2020

SKT launches virtual meetup solution, relocates its AR/VR studio

SK Telecom, one of South Korea‘s leading telecommunications firms, announced Tuesday that the company would begin the global expansion of its virtual and augmented reality service, starting with Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, SKT has partnered with Hong Kong‘s top telecommunications firm PCCW Group, the company announced during an online conference held Tuesday. The two firms will invest in creating AR and VR content too, which will be available via SKT’s virtual and augmented rea

Oct. 20, 2020

S. Korea's 5G download speed 2nd fastest globally: report

South Korea's 5G download speed is the world's second fastest, reaching an average speed of 336.1 megabits per second (Mbps), a report showed Tuesday. The country was only behind Saudi Arabia, which delivered an average 5G download speed of 377.2 Mbps, according to a report from industry tracker Opensignal, which tracked data between July 1 and Sept. 28 in 15 countries with 5G networks. South Korea's average 5G download speed over the period was also 5.6 times faster than its average 4G downlo

Oct. 20, 2020

5G accessibility in major subway lines at over 75%: data

The average accessibility of the fifth-generation network in major subway lines in South Korea reached over 75 percent, a lawmaker said Monday, as the country races to boost nationwide coverage. The high-speed network's accessibility stood at 76.3 percent across 12 subways lines in six major cities across the country, according to Rep. Kim Sang-hee of the ruling Democratic Party, citing data from the Ministry of Science and ICT. The country's three major telecom operators -- SK Telecom Co., KT

Oct. 19, 2020

SK Broadband to build renewable energy-powered hyperscale data center in Saemangeum

SK Broadband will construct a renewable energy-powered hyperscale data center and a startup cluster in the Saemangeum area in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, according to the company Monday. SK Broadband planns to develop the Saemangeum area into Northeast Asia’s data center hub, together with SK group’s energy affiliate SK E&S. “South Korea has optimal conditions to emerge as the region‘s data center hub with its geographical advantage,“ SK Broadband said.

Oct. 19, 2020

Samsung heir flies to Vietnam to discuss expansion of mobile biz

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong on Monday flew to Hanoi to hold a meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister to discuss possible additional investment plans in the country. The South Korean tech giant’s heir apparent is visiting the country for the first time since October in 2018. Samsung’s smartphone business chief Roh Tae-moon and display unit head Lee Dong-hoon joined Lee on the trip. Lee will meet with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Tuesday. Whether the two

Oct. 19, 2020

LG Electronics to introduce new home appliance collection next week

LG Electronics has introduced a teaser video on its official website and its YouTube channel, in which the company hinted at a new collection of home appliances it would roll out Wednesday. In the 15-second video, the company showed silhouettes of different types of home appliances, including laundry machines, dishwashers and the company‘s signature steam closet. The new home appliances from LG Electronics are expected to come in refreshed designs and colors, according to the industry s

Oct. 16, 2020

Gyeonggi confirms case of Japanese encephalitis

South Korea on Thursday reported one confirmed case and two suspected cases of the Japanese encephalitis, all three of them in Gyeonggi Province.  According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, a woman in her 60s was diagnosed with the mosquito-borne disease on Wednesday. The two suspected patients are a woman in her 70s and a man in his 50s. All three started exhibiting symptoms such as fever and disorientation last month, the agency said. Among patients infected with t

Oct. 16, 2020

KT collaborates for remote analysis of clinical images

KT announced Friday that the company has partnered with a Korean firm to develop AI-powered remote health care services. HealthHub, KT‘s new partner company, specializes in facilitating remote analysis of clinical images and videos. HealthHub has partnerships with some 1,200 medical institutions, and currently holds a market share of about 60 percent. KT and HealthHub have agreed to combine their technologies to develop enhanced remote medical solutions, KT said. The telecommunication

Oct. 16, 2020

SKT to spin off mobility business, build joint venture with Uber

SK Telecom announced Friday that the company would spin off its mobility platform and start a new joint venture with US ride-hailing company Uber Technologies. SKT plans to spin off the unit by Dec. 29, according to the regulatory filing. The company’s shareholders would vote on the plan at a general meeting scheduled on Nov. 26. In the spinoff, tentatively named T map Mobility, Uber will invest around $50 million, according to the telecommunications firm. The South Korean telecommunic

Oct. 16, 2020